


Like Me

by Penthesilea1623



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 16:35:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penthesilea1623/pseuds/Penthesilea1623
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamlen reflects on his sister and her children. Takes place during "All That Might Be: Changes".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Me

Gamlen dislikes sharing his home with his sister Leandra and her children, Anabel and Carver.  


Not for the obvious reasons. Not because of the sudden lack of space and privacy, four people and that annoying hound in a space too small for one. Not because of that.  


Living with them is too vivid a reminder of his own childhood.  


Listening to Leandra find fault with her daughter and praise her son, hearing her mourn the loss of that other girl (Bess? Betty?), brings back too many memories of his own parents telling him how he’d never match up to Leandra.  


After she ran off with that Fereldan apostate, he’d thought maybe, just maybe, he’d have a chance to show them what he could do. But still he was found wanting. He nursed them through two bouts of cholera and still it’s Leandra’s name on their lips when they die.  


It isn’t until they’ve been living with him for a few months and he begins to hear stories in the taverns of the impressive rogue working with the Red Iron, when he watches Anabel shower love and affection on Carver, and on the rest of the odd group of companions she’s collected, when he realizes that she has accepted her mother’s indifference and instead chosen to share her affection with those strange friends, that he thinks maybe she’ll be strong enough to break free of the Amell family curse.  


He watches her when he thinks she doesn’t notice. Sees her brush away the insults from Kirkwall natives, calling her “dog lord” and “Fereldan upstart” and watches proudly as she just holds her head high and retorts with a bitingly sarcastic remark as sharp as those daggers she always carries, and he smiles to himself in satisfaction and thinks, that’s right, girl. Don’t take it personally, don’t become bitter. Laugh in their faces.  


Every time he sees her chin lift a little higher after a barb, or a careless insult from her mother. Every time she turns to that ragtag bunch of friends for comfort and company. Every time he hears her laugh, he thinks it.  


That’s right. Don’t be like me.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a drabble from a larger slightly AU piece, in which Leandra is not so nice, Gamlen is not so bad, and Carver and Rogue Hawke both survive, and actually get along.


End file.
